Whew.... we have had the lovely American Foursquare, a.k.a. the Kleven's "Prairie Box" for about a whole month now. It's turned into quite an effort, and we haven't even started moving in yet! But we're figuring the more we can get done now, the easier our lives will be, especially since I (Diana) am not naturally inclined to moving furniture. Now that I have a break point to let you know what is going on, I'll update a little bit. Here is the original RED RED of the living room, and the argyle dining room in the background, accented by the red and white checkerboard entryway and the tulip backdrop to the stairs. I'm in redecoration-idea heaven, but there is quite a bit of work that goes into each item.

Painting, painting, and repainting. We have about five rooms down now, and more more more to go. There aren't really good "after" pictures now, since furniture is not moved in, but I'll throw in some "befores" so you have an idea of what is going on:

And here is some of the progress made:

The first is the living room. When we began it was a very striking and may I say, overwhelming red which contrasted HEAVILY with the white flooring and white mantle trim. Joel's parents came to visit us about two weeks in for a long Labor Day weekend, and all we did was labor till it shone! It was an absolute blast having them here, and with four hands working we got SO much done! We decided to neutralize the red and go for a calmer look with beige. Our original ambition was to strip the mantle, but the daunting amount of work ahead of us deterred us from that time-consuming task. Joel and his dad completely transformed both the living room and dining room in one fell swoop. The dining room turned from an argyle wonderland into a creamy beige, inviting elegant room.

Meanwhile, Mom Kleven and I set to work in the kitchen. I'll start with some pictures of the kitchen before Joel and I set to work painting the cabinets and refreshing the walls from saturated blue to refreshing yellow.

Well, it's getting a little late. I'll continue this with some more pictures. We've got quite the backup of photos and no shortage of progress, so be expecting more soon!